Wild Westing was the term used by Native Americans for their performing with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and similar shows. Between 1887 and World War I, over 1,000 Native Americans went "Wild Westing."See, E.H. Gohl, (Tyagohwens), "The Effect of Wild Westing", The Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians, Washington, D.C., Volume 2, 1914, p.226-228. Heppler, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians” . Other major shows included Pawnee Bill, Cummins Wild West, Miller's 101 Ranch and Sells-Floto Circus. Most were Oglala Lakota (Oskate Wicasa) from their reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the first Lakota people to perform in these shows.Michele Delaney, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Kasebier, Smithsonian National Museum of American History”, (hereinafter "Delaney") (2007), p.21. "Wild West Shows and Images", p.xiii. During a time when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was intent on promoting Native assimilation, William Frederick Cody ("Buffalo Bill") used his influence with U.S. government officials to secure Native American performers for his Wild West. Cody treated Native American employees as equals with white cowboys.
Wild Westers received good wages, transportation, housing, abundant food, and gifts of cash and clothing at the end of each season. Wild Westing was very popular with the Lakota people and benefited their families and communities. Wild Westing offered opportunity and hope during time when people believed Native Americans were a vanishing race whose only hope for survival was rapid cultural transformation. Americans and Europeans continue to have a great interest in Native peoples and enjoy modern Pow-wow culture, traditional Native Americans skills; horse culture, ceremonial dancing and cooking; and buying Native American art, music and crafts. First begun in Wild West shows, Pow-wow culture is popular with Native Americans throughout the United States and a source of tribal enterprise. Wild Westers still perform in movies, pow-wows, pageants and rodeos. Some Oglala Lakota people carry on family show business traditions from ancestors who first worked for Cody and other Wild West shows.
Vanishing race
During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was an explosion of public interest in Native American culture and imagery. Newspapers, dime-store novels, Wild West shows, and public exhibitions portrayed Native Americans as a "vanishing race." Their numbers had decreased since the Indian Wars, and survivors were struggling with poverty and constraints on Indian reservations. American and European anthropologists, who represented a new field, historians, linguists, journalists, photographers, portraitists and early movie-makers believed they had to study western Native American peoples. Many researchers and artists lived on government reservations for extended periods to study Native Americans before they "vanished." Their inspired effort heralded the "Golden Age of the Wild West." Photographers included Gertrude Käsebier, Frank A. Rinehart, Edward Curtis, Jo Mora and John Nicholas Choate, while portraitists included Elbridge Ayer Burbank, Charles M. Russell and John Hauser.
Progressive Era fight for the image
During the Progressive Era, U.S. government policy focused upon acquiring Indian lands, restricting cultural and religious practices and sending Native American children to boarding schools. Progressives agreed that the situation was serious and that something needed to be done to educate and acculturate Native Americans to white society, but they differed as to education models and speed of assimilation. Reformist progressives, a coalition led by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Society of American Indians and Christian organizations, promoted rapid assimilation of children through off-reservation Indian boarding schools and immersion in white culture.Jason A. Heppler, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians", 2011. Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians is a collaborative project of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of History with the assistance from the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Society of American Indians was opposed to Wild West shows, theatrical troupes, circuses and most motion picture firms. The Society believed that theatrical shows were demoralizing and degrading to Indians, and discouraged Indians from "Wild Westing."See, E.H. Gohl, (Tyagohwens), "The Effect of Wild Westing", The Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians, Washington, D.C., Volume 2, 1914, p.226-228. Chauncey Yellow Robe wrote that "Indians should be protected from the curse of the Wild West show schemes, wherein the Indians have been led to the white man's poison cup and have become drunkards." Chauncey Yellow Robe, "The Menace of the Wild West Show", The Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians, Washington, D.C., Volume 2, p.224-225.
Reformist progressives believed Wild West shows exploited Native Americans and vigorously opposed theatrical portrayals of Native Americans as savages and vulgar stereotypes."It was one thing to portray docile natives who had not progressed much since the late fifteenth century, but quite another matter to portray some of them as armed and dangerous." L.G. Moses, "Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883-1933, (hereinafter "Wild West Shows and Images") (1996), p.133. From 1886 to the onset of World War I, reformist progressives fought a war of images with Wild West shows before public exhibitions at world fairs, expositions and parades portraying the model Carlisle Indian Industrial School as a new generation of Native Americans embracing civilization, education and industry.Commissioner John H. Oberly explained in 1889: "The effect of traveling all over the country among, and associated with, the class of people usually accompanying shows, circuses and exhibitions, attended by all the immoral and unchristianizing surroundings incident to such a life, is not only most demoralizing to the present and future welfare of the Indian, but it creates a roaming and unsettled disposition and educates him in a manner entirely foreign and antagonistic to that which has been and now is the policy of the Government.
Public interest in Native American culture and imagery Wild West shows were exceptionally popular in the United States and Europe. The American and European public could see and hear some of the first Americans, not as curiosities, but a people with vibrant culture.Wild West Shows and Images, p. 275 In 1893, over two million patrons saw Buffalo Bill's Wild West perform during the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois."Wild West Shows and Images", pp.137-138. "Buffalo Bill" Cody launched his Wild West traveling show in 1883, and was so successful there were fifty copies in two years.Alida S. Boorn, "Oskate Wicasa (One Who Performs)" (hereinafter "Oskate Wicasa"), Central Missouri State University, (2005), p. 47 Buffalo Bill toured the United States and Europe until his death in 1917. Wild West shows were "dime novels come alive." Millions of Americans and Europeans enjoyed the imagery and adventure of historic reenactments of the Battle of Little Big Horn; demonstrations of Lakota horse culture and equestrian skills; archery, ceremonial dancing, cooking and music. Visitors could stroll through model Indian tipi "villages" and meet performers; available for purchase were crafts from women artisans, and autographed postcards, photographs and memorabilia from famous Wild Westers.Chief Geronimo was an entrepreneur, cutting off his suit buttons as he walked the fairgrounds and selling them as celebrity souvenirs. He also made souvenir bows, arrows and canes; and signed photographs for twenty-five cents. Parezo, Nancy J. and Fowler, Don D, "The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition: Anthropology Goes to the Fair", (2007), p.113.
Between 1887 and World War I, over 1,000 Native Americans went "Wild Westing" with Buffalo Bill's Wild West.Heppler, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians". Other major shows included Pawnee Bill, Cummins Wild West, Miller's 101 Ranch and Sells-Floto Circus. Most Wild Westers were Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the first Lakota people to go Wild Westing.Michele Delaney, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Kasebier, Smithsonian National Museum of American History", (hereinafter "Delaney") (2007), p.21. "Wild West Shows and Images", p.xiii.
During a time when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was intent on promoting Native assimilation, Col. Cody used his influence with U.S. government officials to secure Native American performers for his Wild West. Buffalo Bill treated Native American employees as equals with white cowboys. Wild Westers received good wages, transportation, housing, abundant food, and gifts of cash and clothing from Buffalo Bill at the end of each season. Wild Westers were employed as performers, interpreters and recruiters. Men had money in their pockets and for their families on the reservation. Female performers were paid extra for infants and children, and supplemented wages by making and selling Lakota crafts.Calls the Name and other women supplemented wages by making and selling Lakota crafts. Women served important community roles in camps backstage. Augmenting their show wages was common among Show Indians, especially "'bead work' made into moccasins, purses, etc.," which earned them "very large prices," according to Nate Salsbury. Cody and Salsbury often purchased goods at wholesale prices and sold the goods to Indians at cost, allowing them to create souvenirs for tourists. Show Indians created and sold goods to museums, collectors, and customers across Europe and the United States. Heppler, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians". Performers' newborn babies became part of the villages set up outside show areas. Oskate Wicasa, p.164.
Sobriety and good conduct was required. Performers agreed to refrain from all drinking, gambling and fighting, and to return to their reservation at the end of each seasonal tour. Shows hired venerable elder male Indians to appear in the parades to ensure that young men acted with appropriate behavior when visiting host communities, and rules were self-policed by traditional Oglala Lakota chiefs and former U.S. Army Indian Scouts.Oskate Wicasa, p.6, 54. The number of police chosen depended on the number of Indians traveling with the show each season, a usual number being one policeman for every dozen Indians. Indian policemen, selected from the ranks of the performers, were given badges and paid $10 more in wages per month. in 1898, Chief Iron Tail managed the Indian Police. Delaney, p. 32.
Most performers spent one or two seasons on the road; some Wild Westers became cowboys, stuntmen for films, artisans, musicians, educators, authors, movie actors and entrepreneurs. Chief Flying Hawk was a veteran of Wild West shows over 30 years, from about 1898 to 1930.
Wild Westing was very popular with the Lakota people and beneficial to their families and communities. It offered a path of opportunity during a time when people believed Native Americans were a vanishing race, whose only hope for survival was rapid cultural transformation. It offered a safe haven for Lakota leadership after the Sioux Wars and for famous Native American prisoners of war. The touring also offered freedom six months each year from the degrading confines of government reservations. Wild Westing was an act of passive resistance to oppressive Bureau of Indian Affairs policies.Oskate Wicasa, p.3.